Liz's Blog

Bargain Hunters of Southeastern Connecticut

2008-02-08T20:09:35Z

Go visit "The Auctioneer's Wife", a wonderful blog written by Karen Norman. online editor of The Norwich Bulletin and wife of an auctioneer. In her blog, she writes about what's happening in Southeastern Connecticut with auctions. antique shops, even things like a talk being given at The Salem Free Public Library in Salem, Connecticut Saturday afternoon about how to sell things on ebay.

Karen lists area shops, their addresses, and their hours so now you have all this information in one place, and it saves you all kinds of time hunting in phone books or online to look for a phone number or other information you need to find the place.

Check her out, if you love shopping. and love bargains.

Primary Day Tomorrow in Connecticut!

2008-02-04T07:32:28Z

While I don't mix politics and real estate, tomorrow is one of those days when I will get a chance to see a lot of people I don't often (if ever, except on voting day) run into, including past clients. I'm a moderator at Town Hall in Salem, which means that on the day of the vote, I (along with the moderator for the other party) will be there to oversee the voting and deal with any questions that come up regarding ballots, voter questions, and dealing with the people who are working the polls.

In the past, I've been a "checker" - one of those who sits with the list of voters and checks off names of people who come to vote; a "machine tender" a/k/a "ballot babe"-my husband's nickname for me - meaning I stood 3 feet away from the machine where people put their ballot in to be read and counted, and if it got stuck or spit back out, I explained what they had to do to fix the problem; and now I'm "moderating", which means I can actually leave the room during the day, BUT I have to be there from 5:15AM to 8:00PM. Everyone else is on shift, half a day, so this will be a new experience.

Hopefully, a lot of people come to vote, at least those who are registered, because otherwise it's going to be a long day!

That Very Popular But Misleading Real Estate Chart . . .

2008-02-03T11:56:39Z

Recently, The New London Day published the latest real estate table that compared prices of all different categories of residential real estate in the entire state for the years 2006 and 2007. While there weren't a lot of surprises, some of the numbers were pretty misleading.

For instance, if you looked at the numbers of sales vs. the prices sold in Salem, Ct you would see that - according to this chart - prices have actually gone up by a whopping 20% . . .! This is great news, right? Well. . ahem. . no, that's not what has really happened. If you don't know that last spring there was a sort of "false market" due to Pfizer relocating people here from their Michigan and California plants, you wouldn't understand that houses sold to those buyers when otherwise they might have sat there awhile. The higher priced homes were popular, and did sell, but in a market which only had about 50 sales last year, it doesn't take much to skew the numbers.

Now it's going to take a more reasoned approach with some sellers, to convince them that they really can't expect to sell their homes for quite as much money as they think, just because The Day published this great little chart. Thanks, guys. . .

Moving Day

2007-09-28T07:21:54Z

That was Sept. 4th for me! Thanks to Maureen McCabe for reminding me that I hadn't been over here to change my profile information from my former real estate agency to Prudential Connecticut Realty in Colchester, CT. I never really planned to move, but things change and your outlook changes, and after being in real estate for a little while, I now understand a little more than I used to about the business. In my case, location is everything, and now that I have a handle on *where* I sell the most real estate, I figured it was time to work from that area!

What a concept. . .!

Unfortunately, I had to end a blog I was writing with four other people in my old agency, just as I seemed to be getting some regular readership. But, I'm hoping to spend the weekend getting a new blog going, and getting out there with thoughts and ideas for the area I sell in.

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

My Town: Salem, Connecticut

2007-01-13T18:55:28Z

Caleb Mardini posted a suggestion that we blog about our own towns, and I think it's a great idea!

Salem is in southeastern CT, just north of East Lyme, next to East Haddam on the west and Montville and Norwich on the east and south. With 29 square miles, it's still got a rural character to it, even though it's only about half an hour to the state capital of Hartford, and less than that to New London and Groton, where the naval submarine base is.

With a population of about 4000 people and 1300 + residences, we're pretty small, but that's one of the things I love about living here. If you like volunteering (and I do), this is a great place to get involved, because a small town like Salem lives and dies on their volunteers. Sounds dramatic, but it's true! We have a great story developing here right now, about the soccer fields. What would have cost the taxpayers a lot of money, isn't going to cost much at all. Why? Because parents got involved and raised money and did a lot of work themselves, and now we're going to have soccer fields without having to add much to the budget because of our volunteers. That's the power of small towns, really, and why I love living here. Too many cooks really do spoil the pot.

Most of Salem is two-acre zoning, though there are a couple of neighborhoods like mine that have one-acre parcels. Either way, there's lots of trees and like the typical New Englanders so many of us are here, we appreciate having the privacy of our own properties, and the choice to socialize or not because of all the space we have. It's not that we're "cold" - not at all, in fact. It's that we respect each other's privacy, and don't like to pry into each other's business, but are more than happy to help if needed to. Too many people don't get that about the Northeast, I think. I was brought up further south in the state, but with the understanding that it was rude to ask about other people's business - if they want you to know something, they'll tell you. Here in Salem, I've made friends very quickly, partly because we keep running into each other all the time! You know how it is - hold a town meeting, and the same core 25 people show up.

We have a single school for grades K - 8, then the kids go to the neighboring town (East Lyme) for high school. There's a highway that was started about 30 years ago - Route 11 - that was supposed to connect Hartford with Interstate 95, and it got as far as the northern end of Salem, and then stopped. We need that road desperately, in my opinion, and many Salemites agree. It's a big issue around here, and I hope it gets built - it's on the schedule but is still awaiting final approval.

Salem is a great place to bring up kids, become part of a community, and feel like you're "home" pretty quickly. That's worth a lot to most families, and I'm happy to say we have some pretty nice families in town.

CB Agent from Connecticut

2007-01-13T11:18:09Z

Hi, I just wanted to say hi to my fellow CB agents in this group.

I live and work in Southeastern Connecticut, near but not on the shore. Right now, we're getting used to the new statewide MLS that started on Jan. 10, and I'm definitely still on the learning curve. The system is a slightly different variation of one that was in place for the region next to ours. We've all used that one once in a while, but not often enough to really be comfortable with it. It's interesting, to say the least.

People have asked me if any other states have them, I understand that Maine and Rhode Island do but don't know how well they work, or how long they've had them. Any CB agents here from either of those states that can tell us?

Hope to run into some of you at a conference somewhere, though I'm not going to Las Vegas either.

We Made It Through The Rain

2007-01-10T18:27:41Z

. . . the CTMLS "rain", that is.

After a couple of frustrating days in Eastern Connecticut and our old system (Aris), we're finally integrated (mostly) into the statewide MLS. Well, statewide except for a part of the western end of the state that isn't ready to get down and dirty with the rest of us commonfolk. But for the most part, I can look all over the state now and see what's on the market, from the comfort of a single MLS. No more multiple systems, different logins, different passwords. Progress is a wonderful thing.

Changing to a statewide MLS

2007-01-09T06:26:19Z

In a couple of days,here in Connecticut, our current regional MLS will be pretty much null and void, except as a holding tank for listings that have yet to be transferred to the new, supposedly better CTMLS. Right now, if you Google "CTMLS" you get a page with Google ads for real estate in lots of places in California. . .

Well, that's about right, actually, because trying to get anything in Connecticut right now is impossible on our MLS. In Eastern CT, agents have been spending the day trying to get into the old system, which we will have until the end of the month. As of tomorrow, we will also have the new system, but it is "read only", so when we get a new listing, we're supposed to add it into the old system, and they'll move it over to the new one for us.

Still with me? Okay, so I'm on the phone with a customer yesterday (note: not yet a client, just a "customer"). This customer is asking me questions about houses in a neighborhood in town, and do you think I can access the MLS to see what's there? NO. I take her phone number, ask if I can call her back, and then try to go back and connect. That's not happening either. I wind up going on realtor.com to see what I can find there, then calling her back and asking her if she'd like to come down for a drive around the area, when I can show her things in person on drive-by, and then we can make appointments.

Of course, I don't know exactly what's on the market right now, nor do I know the prices, because I can't look at the MLS, so I'm feeling like a diver without an oxygen tank, and it's not going to get much better for a few more weeks. A few more weeks!!!!

Anyone want to take bets on how much longer than that it's really going to take to get this system working right?? And why, if they're "working on the system" (which is why it freezes up when we try to use it) can't they do it during the evenings, when most of us are off the system???

I'm through whining for now, but I'm at a loss to figure out how I'm supposed to work this out. As an agent, I've had my most valuable tool taken away, and working blind with one arm tied behind my back doesn't make for a happy agent. And there's hundreds of us all over the area. I've no idea what the other regions are experiencing, but I have a feeling it's not anything like what we're going through. A large part of the state is already on the system we are all going to, it's just being tweaked a little to improve it for a statewide system.

AAARRRRGHHH!!!!!!!